some fucked up shit who cares he had sex wit wmn @ wrkplc who hasnt ? he has the rite 2 hav sex tats how u meet ur future spouse usually @ wrkplc/scol rite? at least he ddnt cheat/rape & shit ya kno? hes career shouldnt suffer wit this bs wat ya'll thnk? source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009 ... n_sto.html
Letterman Agonistes: A Comedian Wrestles With An Unfunny Development
9:46 am October 2, 2009
David Letterman told his audience on Thursday night about an extortion plot that began with a package left in his car. (Associated Press)
by Linda Holmes
Last night after his monologue, David Letterman sat at his desk and told a long story. It started in his car at 6 a.m. three weeks ago, when he discovered a package in the back seat, and it ended with the arrest yesterday of a man who tried to blackmail him for $2 million. The man had information about sexual relationships Letterman had had with women who work on his show -- and he apparently suggested that the blackmail wouldn't necessarily end at $2 million.
It is a profoundly odd bit of television. The members of the audience, unprepared for what's coming, expect another "goofy Dave" story, and they chuckle helpfully at the jokes that he seems to insert almost compulsively. He describes his panic, and they laugh sympathetically. But as he describes calling his lawyer, they seem to realize that it isn't actually funny. He's not making jokes in the way you make jokes when your story is going to end up fine. He's making jokes the way he would make jokes about his heart attack.
What's next, and part of the video, after the jump.
He talks about having two meetings with the blackmailer, warning him (on the advice of the police) that what he was doing was blackmail, and was likely criminal, and the man not retreating from his position. And then at the third meeting, giving him a phony check for $2 million. Yesterday, Letterman testified in front of a grand jury, after which the guy was arrested.
It was only at the end of the story, talking about his grand jury testimony, that Letterman said, specifically, what he was being blackmailed about. Until then, he'd repeatedly referred to the information as relating to "creepy things" that he'd done.
He didn't talk about who the women were; he said they could talk about the relationships or not, as they choose. He didn't talk about how long ago all this happened. (He's been married since earlier this year to a woman he's been with since 1986, and they have a son, born in 2003.)
Associated Press writer Lynn Elber sees in this a grand manipulation "from a man acknowledged to be a master of the art of broadcasting," suggesting that the audience laughed because Letterman nudged them in that direction — but asking, "What happens when the TV bubble bursts and people take another look?"
Presumably, she is suggesting that Letterman will, and should, be abandoned by his fans because of this revelation about his personal life. What's most interesting, however, is how differently she and I saw the same sequence.
Elber saw a guy trying to artfully take himself off the hook by manipulating the crowd with humor; I saw a guy who makes jokes professionally and who, called upon to do something painfully embarrassing, makes jokes. At times, he seemed entirely startled by the audience's laughter or applause, as was I -- they laugh and applaud at the moment he says that the allegations were true, that he's had sex with women who work on his show.
He doesn't seem to expect that: He has a joke a moment later when he refers to those revelations as "embarrassing, especially for the women," and that's meant to be a joke, but it's not my read that he thinks it's a punch line when he says that what was being said was all true.
Elber talks about how Letterman "moved gracefully into the role of victim," but when someone attempts to extort $2 million from you, aren't you in fact a victim? That's why it's a crime; that's why there was an arrest. I didn't see Letterman trying to make himself the victim with regard to the affairs — remember the repeated references were to how "creepy" his own behavior had been? He didn't talk about things he had done, or private information about himself. He talked about creepy things.
What's most interesting to me is the decision to speak about this on the show, at length, rather than releasing a statement. He undoubtedly had no choice about the matter becoming public — the grand jury testimony and the arrest guaranteed that.
But by talking about it in this context, from behind his desk, Letterman chose continuity with his audience. If you issue a statement through your attorney and never talk about it on your show, you perpetuate the sense that there is Show Dave and then there is Off-The-Show Dave.
Letterman has generally not operated that way. He's talked about his wedding, talked about his heart attack, even talked about his stalker. And now he's talked about this. Both Show Dave and Off-The-Show Dave have been blackmailed; both have had affairs. Would it have been smarter to let the audience separate the two?
It's hard to say yet. Presenting himself as flawed and foolish is part of Letterman's persona; that's why the audience laughed at this story. When he tells a long tale in which part of the punch line is that he did something wrong, people recognize the Dave they've watched for years. But when you get into revelations involving your family, it's quite different.
In one glancing reference, Letterman said that in addition to hoping to protect his family, the women he had been involved with, and himself, he hoped to protect his job. CBS, thus far, has said that it believes his remarks "speak for themselves.". Letterman has been on a big upswing lately, soundly outperforming Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show. If that continues, there's not much reason for him to lose his job.
This will surely reignite the "Fire Dave" cause that flamed up after this summer's Sarah Palin jokes. (It will be framed in terms of sexual harassment, which it might or might not be, depending on who the women were and what occurred.) But "Fire Dave" organizers haven't been watching his show anyway, in all likelihood.
Still, it's an interesting decision, as a television host, to essentially take your case directly to your viewers, and to say the most embarrassing thing about yourself before anybody else does. It's much too early to say whether it's going to work for him. But it's certainly not what anybody was expecting when they tuned in to watch Woody Harrelson promote Zombieland.
